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To Return Home?

The sun sets behind the Catalonian hills as we pack our bags. It is the end of another perfect day of climbing in Northern Spain. We’ve done more great routes, had laughs with friends and almost three months into our trip, psyche is still very high. I feel happy and carefree. Almost.

The last couple of days have been spent planning our return to the UK in two weeks, a thought which does not fill me with excitement. The UK will be grey and cold when we return and I will probably have to find a part time job just to kill the time I can’t spend going climbing. Whatever I end up doing for a while, it seems impossible that it will be nearly as fun as what I’m doing now.

So people keep asking me, “why not just stay in Spain?”.

Three months have been amazing but I fear staying indefinitely would cause me to take the luxuries of this lifestyle for granted. Simple things such as getting up when we wake up in the morning, a treat rarely experienced during my everyday life inthe UK, are already beginning to feel normal. Staying in Spain, living simply and having fun, would be too easy to do. I don’t want life to be easy.

During this trip I feel almost like I’ve ‘found myself’, yet I can’t help feeling that staying would cause me to get lost all over again. You don’t know how good something is until it’s gone and you can’t be fully happy until you’ve felt worse. Deep down I feel I haven’t earned the right to stay in Spain. That I don’t deserve it.

So on Friday the 13th of December my feet will reunite with damp British soil and a new chapter of my life will begin. I will be extremely sad to leave Spain but I have a feeling things will turn out ok.